Three minutes of prime time TV or the one minutes of the daily news will give one ample reason to doubt the evolving human race. Yet, when sufficiently challenged, even in the least likely candidate a super-hero you may find.
As ordinary as they most often seem, people are amazing. Only we rarely witness a person’s full potential as we tend to keep our inner strength as hidden as Bruce Wayne does his alter ego. At least until… Until life does that thing life does—challenges us. 
The story here is one of those times that forges a hero’s true strength. It’s a story of a father and a son, a story of hope and doing the right thing. It’s a story so real, so raw and so painful it’s beyond most people’s capacity to assimilate. It’s the type of story that you may be inclined to shy away from—thinking of it as that “bad news.” We get enough of that, so I understand not wanting more but this is more than just a great read–it’s important. To turn it out is to miss the real story inside the story—the infinite capacity–the true strength of the human spirit.
There are no times more taxing, more requiring of strength than the death of a loved on, an immediate member of your family. Having experienced the challenge of summing up my father’s life in eulogy (a story I share in my new book) I can attest to how deeply the moment calls upon one’s inner strength.
Yet, I still can not begin to imagine the pain that must accompany the inverse—when a parent says good-bye to a child. And in the case of this inspiring, gripping amazing story shared by ESPN’s Bill Simmons, a gifted young athlete who was counting the days until he would be able to remove his parents from a life plagued by inner-city terrorism.
Read Bill Simmon’s, To An Athlete Dying Young.
May we all learn something from the too short life of Jamiel Andre Shaw II, a kid who did things the right way.
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